to a brief period of press freedom, until a violent military crackdown in 1976 resulted in a major clamp-down. The 1980s saw the gradual thawing of press censorship. Books Sarakadee Magazine has published a three part overview of book censorship in Thailand. Unless critical of the royal family, monarchy or sensitive government issues, foreign and domestic books normally are not censored and circulate freely. All public discussion of the death of 20-year-old King Ananda Mahidol, the previous king's elder brother, of a single gunshot wound to the head is discouraged and not taught in schools even to history majors. The Devil's Discus by Rayne Kruger (London: Cassell, 1964), a result of investigative reporting, which examines the case of King Ananda, was immediately banned and its author barred from Thailand. Curiously, neither the book's Japanese or Thai translation (in 1972) have been banned. However, the first 16 pages of all extant copies of The Devil's Discus in Thai have been excised and seem to have no text corresponding to the English original. Widely considered to be the father of Thai democracy, Pridi Banomyong was a writer of the first Thai constitution in 1932 which transformed Thailand from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy. In addition, he was twice prime minister, a wartime underground hero who fought the Japanese occupation of Thailand, and the founder of Thammasat University. However, Pridi was brought under suspicion of regicide in the death of King Ananda by his chief political rival, strongman military Prime Minister Plaek Pibulsonggram and was forced to flee into exile with his chief aide-de-camp (and Ananda's), Vacharachai Chaisittiwet. Vacharachai's brother became the Thai translator of The Devil's Discus in an attempt to clear his name. Most Thais today have forgotten that Pridi Banomyong, the father of Thai democracy, died in exile. Three royal servants were executed without warning and in secrecy for regicide in 1955, nine years after King Ananda's death, after many acquittals and subsequent prosecution appeals with little evidence, old or new, but which resulted in fresh convictions for all three in Thailand's highest court. The entire legal case appears to have been predicated on hearsay and the motivation political, purely to keep Pridi out of the picture. King Bhumibol, a young, untested monarch at the time, failed to exercise his royal prerogative of pardon for the three prisoners, despite the many questionable facets to the case. The Revolutionary